Vintage Courage Beer Colbalt Blue Ashtray, great British beer collectible...

Description

Vintage
Courage Beer Colbalt Blue Ashtray, this ashtray is in
Excellent
condition with some very small chipping on base, the piece measures 6.25" x 1.25' there is no paint loss or cracks, this would make great addition to any collection. This piece likely dates from late 70's to 80's.
History
Courage & Co Ltd was started by John Courage at the
Anchor Brewhouse
in
Horsleydown
,
Bermondsey
in 1787. He was a
Scottish
shipping agent of
French Huguenot
descent. It became Courage & Donaldson in 1797. By 1888, it had been registered simply as Courage. In 1955, the company merged with Barclay, Perkins & Co Ltd (who were located at the nearby
Anchor Brewery
) to become Courage, Barclay & Co Ltd. Only five years later another merger with the
Reading
based
Simonds Brewery
led to the name changing to Courage, Barclay, Simonds & Co Ltd. In 1961,
Georges Bristol Brewery
was acquired. By the late 1960s, the group had assets of approximately £100m, and operated five breweries in London, Reading, Bristol, Plymouth and Newark-on-Trent. It owned some 5,000 licensed premises spread over the whole of Southern England, a large part of South Wales and an extensive area of the East Midlands and South Yorkshire. It was employing some 15,000 people and producing something like 75 million imperial gallons (340,000,000 L) of beer annually. Its name was simplified to Courage Ltd in October 1970 and the company was taken over by the
Imperial Tobacco
Group Ltd two years later.
Its vast Worton Grange (later the Berkshire) brewery was opened on the
Reading
/
Shinfield
border in 1978. The
Anchor Brewery
closed in 1981 and all brewing was transferred to Reading. Imperial Tobacco was acquired by the
Hanson Trust
in 1986 and it sold off Courage to
Elders IXL
who were renamed the
Foster's Brewing Group
in 1990. The following year the Courage section of Foster's merged with the breweries of
Grand Metropolitan
. Its
public houses
were owned by a joint-company called Inntrepreneur Estates. Scottish & Newcastle purchased Courage from Foster's in 1995, creating Scottish Courage as its brewing arm.
In January 2007, the rights for the production, marketing and sales of the Courage brands were sold to
Wells & Young's Brewing Company
of
Bedford
which reverted to Charles Wells, once Wells bought out Young's shares in the venture. This is managed by a venture called Courage Brands Ltd. Heineken retained a 17 per cent stake in the venture until 2011, when Wells & Young's acquired complete control. The Berkshire Brewery closed in April 2010. Courage Best has undergone a significant decline in sales from almost 421,000
hectolitres
(9.3 million gallons) in 2003 to under 142,000 hectolitres (3.1 million gallons) in 2012. The decline of Courage Directors has levelled off at around 60,000 hectolitres (1.3 million gallons), which is down from 140,000 hectolitres (3.1 million gallons) in 2003.
[5]
Wells & Young's reintroduced the historic brew, Courage Imperial Russian Stout, which was first brewed in the 18th century by Thrale's brewery; but this has mainly proved to be produced for distribution in the US, with limited amounts available in the UK. In 2017,
Marston's Brewery
acquired the brand as part of its acquisition of Charles Wells's Eagle Brewery.
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